


I Couldn’t Give You Today, But I Can Promise You Tomorrow

by midnightraptor



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Police, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Happy Ending, Humor, Jaime/Brienne Appreciation Week, Jealousy, partners, this is so late god i'm sorry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-26
Updated: 2015-01-31
Packaged: 2018-02-22 15:45:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2513105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightraptor/pseuds/midnightraptor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Jaime crashes Brienne’s date and the one time she crashes his.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this is my VERY late contribution to JBWeek. I saw everyone’s beautiful graphics on my dash and wanted to join in with the fun but can’t make graphics to save my life so I just decided to sprinkle the themes throughout this fic. There won’t be one in every chapter but they’ll all be there by the end even if just briefly mentioned. I’m still fairly new to writing JB and still trying to get the characters down so bear with me. Enjoy!

The first time he crashes it’s completely by accident.

He’s rounding out mile 14 of his nearly 15 mile ride through the Presidio, well ahead of his usual time and quite pleased with himself as a result. Sweat pours from his body, stinging his eyes and soaking his clothes, the sweltering September sun climbing the sky only exacerbating the issue. Still, he pushes on, legs pumping furiously through the fatigue beginning to set in. He counts to take his mind off the burn, _one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four,_ and peddles steadily to the silent beat he’s set for himself.

Jaime wasn’t always fond of biking, the abundance of skin-tight, brightly-colored spandex horrifying him to no end. But when his doctor declared that his daily jogs were contributing to the lower back pain he’d been experiencing since getting out of the Army and instructed him to find a different workout, he found himself at the local sports store and wheeling out a brand new mountain bike 30 minutes later. He loves it now, the feel of the wind rushing past him, the freshness of the air when he rides the various peaks and trails of the Bay, and if he wasn’t for the fact that he still needed to make a living, he’d be out on his bike every day.

He shifts his weight and turns a corner, hugging the edge of the dirt trail with expert precision. It’s Monday morning, one of his rare weekdays off, and as such the path has been nearly deserted save for the occasional adventurous tourist. He likes it this way, doesn’t have to spend his time slowing down for amateurs who really have no business on these paths and only serve to clog up the traffic with their sightseeing and gawking. It’s a price he has to pay, however, living in such close proximity to one of the most iconic bridges in the world although he wishes it was one that was a little less annoying.

Suddenly, a flash of movement up ahead, the shrubbery lining the trail being ruffled by an unseen figure just behind it. A second later, a man runs out onto the path and directly into Jaime’s way, clearly oblivious to the bike racing towards him at over 15 mph. It all happens so fast and Jaime doesn’t have a chance to steer clear of the idiot, barely managing to grab the brakes and wrench the handlebars to the side. But it’s not enough, the sudden grip of the brake pads only serving to send the wheels skidding dangerously across the loosely packed dirt and rocks, and he clips the man with his shoulder and back tire as he barrels past.

Then, he’s flying, ejected from his seat in spectacular fashion, arms and legs flailing helplessly, before hitting the hard, dirt ground flat on his face with enough force to knock the breath clean out of him and rattle his head in his helmet. For a moment, he’s completely still, his brain slowly piecing itself back together in order to process what had just happened. Blood fills his mouth and for one panicked second, he thinks he bit his tongue right in half until he experimentally runs it over his teeth to check if any are missing. Negative on both counts. He glances at his legs, infinitely relieved to see they’re not facing the wrong direction, then shifts one just a hair. _Not broken then_ , he muses rather drily. Satisfied that he isn’t a quadriplegic, he rolls onto his side to prop himself up, fighting the pain that shoots up his right arm and shoulder.

“Son of a—” He groans and spits out a mouthful of blood. Twisting his wrist, he’s assured that they, at least, aren’t broken, nor are either of his arms, but the warm blood trickling down to his elbow tells him that he’s certainly fucked something up. He rips off his helmet, grateful of course for its protection, but already feeling the slow simmer of anger building in his stomach.

Equally anguished moans coming from a few feet away pull him back to the present and he looks over his shoulder to see the man lying on his back, looking pathetically like an overturned crab as he struggled to right himself.

“Goddamn idiot,” the man grumbles into his hands. “Watch where you’re going.”

“You stepped in my way, you fucking prick.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

They’ve managed to sit themselves upright, both giving each other angry looks of disgust, Jaime just about ready to punch the unapologetic bastard right in the mouth, bloodied arm be damned, when a second figure emerges from the bushes next to them.

“Oh, my— Are you two alright?”

He snaps his head around, ready to tell the undoubtedly well-meaning passerby exactly where they can shove their hospitality, only to find himself staring up at the towering form of a woman he’s all too familiar with looking very much horrified at the scene she’s just stumbled upon.

“Brienne? What’re you doing here?” He scrambles to his feet, ignoring the pain rippling down his back as he does so.

She looks at him like he’s gone simple. “Stealing nuclear launch codes, what do you think I’m doing here?”

Belatedly, he realizes what she’s wearing, a dark pink windbreaker, black spandex pants ending just below her knees, and running shoes, and a quick glance behind her reveals the pedestrian pathway she’s just emerged from running perpendicular to the bike trail. Her cheeks are flushed, freckles standing out against the red, and she brushes aside the damp straw-colored hair plastered to her forehead with a careless sweep.

“You know this train wreck?”

Both he and Brienne turn back to the man who’d finally gotten to his feet, dusting dirt off his gym shorts but looking none worse for wear given their collision. For a second, Jaime thinks he’s directing his question to him but narrows his eyes in suspicion when he sees that the man is actually addressing Brienne.

For some reason, the blonde looks rather uncomfortable, eyes darting quickly between the two men. “Oh, um, this is Jaime, my partner at the precinct. Jaime, this is, um, Hyle. He’s…”

She trails off and drops her gaze from his altogether, her familiar blush creeping up her neck and coloring her already flushed cheeks.

“Her boyfriend,” the man finishes for her and moves closer to her side as if to further assert his place in her life.

“ _Boyfriend_?” Jaime blurts out before he can stop himself, entirely at a loss. Whatever he was expecting, it certainly wasn’t that. “You didn’t tell me you were seeing someone.”

“I know this may surprise you but I don’t have to tell you everything that goes on in my life.”

“You tell Sansa and Margaery,” he mutters rather sulkily.

“Yeah, well…” She shrugs. “They ask nicely.”

Her phone rings then and she steps away to answer, leaving him and her boyfriend alone to stare at each other. He has a million questions, _How long had they been seeing each other, Why didn’t she tell him, Where the hell did this guy even come from,_ but none of which he actually feels like hearing the answers to at the moment _._

Hyle’s looking at him with a gleam in his eyes, one that thoroughly irritates Jaime to no end though the man has barely spoken.

“Jaime, huh? Jaime Lannister?”

Immediately, his skin prickles. He knows where this is going. He _always_ knows where this question is going. “What’s it to you?”

Hyle lifts a shoulder, a careless shrug barely concealing his contempt, and scratches at his beard. “It’s nothing to me. I’m sure CID exonerated you for all the right reasons.”

And there it is. “I never lied to CID.”

“I never said you did.”

The man does a piss poor job of hiding his smirk, and Jaime fights the overwhelming urge to shove his face into the nearest solid object he can find. So he balls his fists instead, nails digging into his palms hard enough to draw blood. It always comes back to that. Even now, nearly 10 years since the day, he can never escape the whispers, the ill-concealed disgust and derision, the unwanted legacy he left behind the day he put three rounds into the back of Aerys Targaryen in the middle of a routine training mission. He told his story, how he had no other choice when the volatile, trigger-happy Second Lieutenant seemingly lost touch with reality, arming the several dozen pounds of explosives they had rigged and hidden around a building housing their commanding officers masquerading as the enemy. Jaime reacted and Aerys was dead before the charges went off but the damage was done. Precious few had believed him. Even with the evidence in his favor, few dared to cross one of the oldest and most powerful military families in the country when one of their own had fallen. But 27 weeks later, Criminal Investigation Command dropped all charges and he was honorably discharged, amid rumors that his father had pulled his weight and bought his son’s freedom. He never asked if they were true, the possibility that they were sickening him to his stomach, and to this day, the thought that, after all he’d achieved on his own, he owed his entire career to his cold and calculating father was enough to keep him away from almost all Lannister gatherings.

He glares at Hyle, the muscles clenching in his jaw, and considers it a small miracle he’s managed to last this long without inflicting him with bodily harm, his respect for his partner the only thing keeping him from doing so. Although how Brienne ended up with this smartass bastard is beyond him.

“You might wanna get that looked at,” Hyle remarks, nodding to Jaime’s bloodied arm with nothing even remotely resembling an inkling that he gave a damn.

“I’m fine.”

“No, really, Jaime,” Brienne had finally ended her call and walks back towards them. “You’re bleeding.”

“I’m fine. It’s just a scratch,” he growls a bit more harshly than her well-meaning concern probably warranted. But he was done with this whole conversation and the sooner he got Hyle’s self-satisfied smirk out of his sight, the less likely he was to commit a felony.

He stalks off to where his bike had landed and sets it back upright, ignoring the bloody handprint he leaves on the metallic grey frame, an indication that he actually probably should get it looked at. His helmet lies at his feet so he picks it up and jams it on his head.

“Tell your boyfriend to stay off the damn bike path,” he snaps over a shoulder. “They’re there for a reason.”

Swinging a leg over the bike, various muscles and joints protesting every movement, he sits himself on the saddle and pushes off without another look back.

But that doesn’t stop the wounded look on Brienne’s face after he nastily brushed off her concern nor the sinking feeling that settled in his gut after Hyle was introduced from bothering him more than he’s willing to admit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 4- One Scene: "Jaime scrambled to his feet." aDwD Chapter 43
> 
> I’ve started working so my writing time’s been cut down but I hope to not keep you all waiting too long. Stay tuned!
> 
>  
> 
> [Chapter 1 photoset](http://midnightraptor.tumblr.com/post/100962625240/i-couldnt-give-you-today-but-i-can-promise-you)


	2. Chapter 2

The second time he crashes it doesn’t turn out quite like he hoped.

It’s three weeks after the biking incident, and he’s walking down Market in the last light of the mid-October sun. Under normal circumstances, he’d consider venturing out of his meager walk-up right on the edge of Chinatown to run errands that weren’t time-sensitive on and around Market on a Friday to be nothing short of insanity. As one of the city’s most popular, and therefore, busiest areas, the street swarmed with traffic, vehicular and pedestrian alike. On a good day, it was survivable; on a bad day, it was absolute anarchy.

Today, it’s the latter. It’s Fleet Week, the annual aviation and maritime celebration that had millions of visitors descending upon the city for a week of waterfront festivities. It’s baseball season and Giants fever had every loyal Bay Area resident bleeding orange and black as the boys worked to earn their spot in yet another World Series over at AT&T Park. It’s October, the tail end of the tourist high season hauling in sightseers from all over the world before the Bay was transformed into a dense foggy wonderland for the winter. And to top it all off, it’s Friday which meant every nine-to-fiver was out and about, letting loose and enjoying their night after yet another long work week.

But Jaime’s been in a good mood all day, stellar in fact, and despite his perpetual hatred of crowds especially those of the unruly revelers and gawking tourist variety, he’d thrown caution to the wind that morning and walked out his front door, ready for whatever came his way as he crossed off a few things he’s needed to get done for a while now. He was incredibly chipper and had he been able to see himself, he would’ve rolled his eyes at the literal spring in his step. But he was well within his rights to be, a brutal double murder now behind him and the disturbed, piece of shit offender safely behind bars. It had been a sleepless three weeks and at the end of it all, Captain Stark had seen fit to give both him and Brienne an extra day off for their efforts, shutting down their protests with a single stern finger wagging in their direction and telling them in no uncertain terms that she didn't want to see them anywhere near the station until Saturday. He’s rested now, feeling infinitely more like a human being than he had in recent memory and, although he’s grateful for that extra day, itching to get back out on the streets.

Until then, however, he’s spending the rest of his night having a few drinks with his brother whom he hasn’t seen in several months thanks to their opposing schedules. There weren’t many Lannisters whose company he truly enjoyed these days (barring Tyrion, that really only left his aunt Genna who, technically, wasn’t even a Lannister) and even he had to admit it was nice knowing he hadn’t completely been thrown out of the family.

He stops to wait at an intersection and takes the pause to pull out his phone and send a quick text to Tyrion.

 _on my way. be there in 15_.

His reply comes a few seconds later accompanied by a picture of a massive tankard of beer. _could u go ne slower? u’ll find me at the bottom of this when u get here._

Pocketing his phone with a snort, he crosses the street with the throng of other pedestrians and continues towards their favorite bar. Clearly someone had had a shitty week in court.

He’s coming up on a restaurant’s street-side outdoor tables when he catches sight of a woman sitting under one of the oversized blue cloth umbrellas with her back turned to him, her hulking figure illuminated by a gas lamp starting to flicker on for the night.

He grins. He knows that blonde head of hair and strong, broad shoulders anywhere, has seen them nearly every day for the past three years.

The woman shifts slightly, revealing her bearded companion sitting across from her looking completely engrossed in whatever she was saying.

 _Well, this could be interesting_.

Deciding a few more minutes won’t kill Tyrion despite all his complaining, he picks up his pace, slips through the restaurant’s low metal gate separating its patrons from the sidewalk traffic, and weaves his way between tables until he gets to theirs.

“Well, well, well. Fancy seeing you two here.”

He smirks at the way Brienne flinches at his sudden voice, turning to him with her big, blue eyes blown wide in surprise.

“I thought you hated Mexican food,” he says to her while eyeing the remnants of what must’ve been tacos on her plate.

She opens her mouth, no doubt to stutter something about how she hates _beans_ , not Mexican food, (which he knows) but Jaime’s already turning his attention to the man sitting silent across the table.

“Hunt.”

“Lannister.”

“You don’t mind if I have a seat, do you?” he asks, already pulling a chair over from the next table. “Been running errands all day.”

Hyle gives him a look that quite plainly says he does indeed mind a whole lot but instead just grits his teeth and mutters, “By all means.”

Jaime settles himself between the couple, taking pleasure in the tense, awkward silence that fills the air.

“So? How’s everything?”

More silence, Brienne’s, apprehensive and bated, Hyle’s, unamused and stony.

He tries a different tactic. “Oh, come on, now. We can get past before, can’t we? Water under the bridge and all that.”

He meets Hyle’s steely glare with a wide grin of his own, watches as the man weighs the pros and cons between playing the asshole who won’t accept a peace offering and putting up with his girlfriend’s partner for a few minutes.

“Of course,” Hyle says at last, giving Jaime a stiff nod.

He beams. “Excellent.” He almost feels Brienne relax next to him, shoulders slumping as she released the breath she’d been holding.

“So, what do you do for a living, eh, Hyle? The most Brienne, here, will tell me is that you’re a writer.” He picks a tortilla chip from Brienne’s plate and points it at his partner. “She’s been keen on keeping you shrouded in mystery, this one.” He pops the chip in his mouth, ignoring Brienne’s indignant huff. He has to hand it to her though. In the three weeks since their run-in at the Presidio, he’d grilled her nearly every day for any other clues as to who exactly Hyle was but aside from his last name and a vague occupation, she’d managed to hold her own much to his growing exasperation.

An unreadable look passes over Hyle’s face but it disappears as quickly as it came. “I’m a reporter for the Chronicle.”

“Are you? Anything I might’ve read?”

Brienne snorts. “The only time you’ll ever find Jaime’s nose in the paper is when the A’s win.”

“Hey, give me a little credit,” he says, feigning a wounded pout. “I’ll open it up whenever the family stocks take a dive. Just for a laugh.”

“I usually get an article or two each week. It pays the bills.”

“What, movie reviews? Comics?” He snaps his fingers as if struck by an epiphany. “Horoscopes?”

There’s a beat and the annoyingly amused gleam is back in Hyle’s eyes. “Crime. Right up your alley.”

“Huh.”

“On-scene reporting, breaking news, stuff like that. Actually, it’s how Brienne and I met,” Hyle adds with a meaningful look at Brienne.

He pauses like he expects Jaime to say something but Jaime’s good mood and willingness to play nice is seeping out of him at an alarming rate. _That didn’t last very fucking long_.

So Hyle continues. “The Hoat-Bolton case you two were working a few months back? I was at the scene when you found the meat cleavers at his warehouse. I asked for a comment about the case when you guys were heading back in and Brienne was kind enough to speak to me. Gave me her number in case I needed anything clarified before print,” he concludes and throws a roguish wink at Brienne.

Jaime looks at his partner who turns an interesting shade of scarlet and refuses to meet his gaze. “Of course she did. Tell me,” He directs flinty stare his back to Hyle. “This a habit of yours? Picking up cops at crime scenes?”

“Only if they burn about 50 shades of red as they hand me their number. I didn’t know cops were capable of blushing that hard.”

This time, it’s Jaime’s turn to stare back at Hunt in a stoic, unamused silence, the muscle jumping in his jaw, mouth drawn into a taut line. He isn’t fucking here for this. As a cop, he already hates reporters on principle, the way they skulked around crime scenes like a pack of hyenas waiting for the latest development and hounded anyone they spotted, law enforcement or otherwise, for information. After nearly 10 years on the beat, he's long past fraternizing with the media but clearly his junior partner had no qualms about it yet.

“But enough about me,” Hyle says with a dismissive wave, either ignoring or oblivious to Jaime’s sullenness. “I hear you two have been partners for a while now.”

Brienne seems to catch the growing hostile glint in Jaime’s eye and chooses that moment to chime in. “Three years. Jaime was transferred over from Vice after, um…”

She falters, as she always does, at that part of their story, an immense sadness shadowing her pale features, but Jaime takes pity on his partner and tamps down his annoyance enough to answer, “After I got tired of arresting the same Johns and whores in the Tenderloin and pretending like Petyr Baelish wasn’t the man behind the curtain.” It’s not the whole story but close enough to the truth as Hyle’s going to get.

“Vice, huh?” To his credit, Hyle actually seems genuinely interested. “Is that much different from Homicide? I’d think you’d get a lot of crossover.”

“You’d be surprised. This one hadn’t sat behind a desk in two years when he showed up in my bullpen.”

“Undercover, Tarth. Surprisingly, prostitutes aren’t all that willing to talk to cops with a badge hanging around our necks. And I was still a better detective than you. Still am.” It’s an argument they’ve had half a million times since the start of their partnership but one neither one of them can help but poke fun at every so often.

She rolls her eyes, her usual reaction when his ego starts getting away from him. “Please. It just took you three months to find out I was seeing Hyle. And it was completely by accident.”

A sculpted blonde eyebrow arches in his direction but he pays no attention to her baiting, instead mulling over the new piece of information she’d let slip: that she and _le boyfriend_ had been an item for the past _three months_ , and neither did she tell him nor did he, Detective Jaime Lannister of the SFPD, ever catch on.

“So, how does the son of Tywin Lannister end up a detective anyway?”

Shifting his gaze to the reporter, he finds Hyle watching him intently. “Same way everyone else does.”

“Which is?”

He leans back in his chair, already onto what Hyle is fishing for: a story. “Am I being interviewed right now?”

“If you’d like to be.”

“I’ll pass, thanks.”

A shrug, like he couldn’t be blamed for sticking his nose in Jaime’s life. “Well, if you ever change your mind I think it’d make an interesting article.”

“I doubt that.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised what people love reading these days.”

They sit there, Jaime itching to wipe the small, stupid smile right off of Hyle’s face with his knuckles.

“Anyway, we should probably get going if we’re going to make the play,” Hyle says at a length, glancing at Brienne.

She blinks several times as if she’s just been caught in a daze before nodding in agreement. “Oh, right. Yeah.”

“What’re you guys seeing?” Jaime asks her as Hyle calls the waiter over.

“The Waldau play at the Orpheum Theater.”

He frowns. “Weren’t you moaning about how it sold out weeks ago?” She’d mentioned it a few times, how it was written by some actor from some show she watched and how there’d only be a few limited engagements in the city, but when the window to buy tickets came and went and she remained empty handed, she’d been in a sullen mood for days.

The tips of her ears turn crimson and she takes a long sip of her drink to avoid answering.

“A friend of mine wrote a review for the paper,” Hyle supplies after handing his credit card to the waiter. “He pulled a few strings and got us tickets.”

“Big of you.”

Another shrug. Jaime’s beginning to really hate that shrug. “It was nothing. He owed me a favor.”

They spend a few minutes having mindless chit chat or rather, Hyle and Brienne do while Jaime sits silently next to them. His partner attempts to prod him into speaking but soon abandons her efforts when he makes it clear he’s none too interested in sharing his plans for the night.

The waiter returns with Hyle’s card and Jaime watches awkwardly as Hyle helps Brienne out of her seat and into her coat, eyes narrowing at the way she smiles her thanks. They leave their table and exit through the gate, Jaime turning to face them once they step onto the curb.

“Right. Well. Enjoy the play.” There’s a tightness in his voice, one he knows wasn’t there before and hopes she doesn’t hear.

But she knows him far too well for his own good, catches on to the slight tick in his voice, and senses something’s different. He sees it in her eyes, the questioning look she lays on him that’s a little too intense for his liking.

But she also knows not to pry, that whatever he’s not saying will remain unsaid at least for now. So she smiles instead, an almost hopeful lightness gracing her thick lips. “See you tomorrow?”

He loses himself for a moment in the blues of her eyes, in the earnestness he finds in them. Briefly, he thinks he sees a flash of an apology but then he blinks and it’s gone and he wonders what she would’ve had to be sorry for anyway.

“Yeah,” he says at last, almost so quietly he wonders if she heard him.

He holds her gaze a second longer until the moment passes and he tears his eyes away from hers. Hyle stands at her side, wordlessly watching the whole exchange, so Jaime nods at the man who returns the gesture with a sort of grudging acceptance before he and Brienne turn and head down the street, ready to continue on with their night and put Jaime’s interruption out of their minds. He watches as they walk away, Brienne’s modest black skirt swishing about her thighs, Hyle with his hand pressed lightly against her lower back, seemingly at ease with the several inches she has on him. When he drops his arm, her fingers find his own and unbidden, Jaime’s stomach clenches at the sight.

His phone buzzes urgently in his pocket, snapping him out of his funk. Tyrion, he has no doubt, wondering why the hell he’s taking so long. He’s no longer in any mood to entertain a night of his brother’s drunken regaling of tales from court but he takes that as his cue and walks off in the opposite direction, seeking out their usual haunt on autopilot. Still, he scarcely makes it a few steps when a peculiar itch prickles his neck and he can’t help from glancing over a shoulder to see her towering form disappear into the crowd. Turning away to continue down the street, he scrubs a hand through his hair and shakes his head, the unfamiliar sensation still churning unpleasantly in his gut.

She’s gone on dates before, never anything serious and he always found something to make her laugh at afterwards when she’d recount just how horrifically they’d gone as they sat in the bullpen huddled over case files.

So why is he walking away wondering why the hell this one is so different?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Tenderloin is a kinda sketchy part of San Francisco known for homelessness, prostitution, and crime in general. Not a place you’d want to get caught in alone at night unless you really know your way around.
> 
>  
> 
> [Chapter 2 photoset](http://midnightraptor.tumblr.com/post/101971353960/i-couldnt-give-you-today-but-i-can-promise-you)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my second favorite chapter so far (I think; my actual favorite chapter is the next one if it turns out at all like how I want it to). Enjoy!

The third time he crashes he actually wishes he rather hadn’t.

He was 15 years old the last time he cried.

He still remembers that day, the muggy August afternoon he walked home from school, eight year old Tyrion’s tiny hand held tightly in his own as his brother happily babbled away about his day, Jaime chiming in indulgently whenever there was a pause.

He heard them before he saw them, the low, harsh growl of the 1992 Camaro rumbling through the quiet Pacific Palisades neighborhood. They called out to him from lowered windows, the same weak, unimaginative taunts he’d been hearing ever since he’d been called on to read as Romeo in freshman English, but he ignored them, determinedly staring straight ahead and pulling Tyrion closer to his side. He figured they’d soon grow bored and go on their way like they always did so when the sleek black muscle car pulled over next to him and its occupants piled out, he couldn’t help keeping his heart from stuttering in his chest.

There were three of them, all huge, all sneering, all so stupid themselves Jaime wondered what gave them the right to choose him for the butt of their jokes when all he had trouble with was reading. They crowded around him and Tyrion, circling them like dogs as they continued down the street, and Jaime felt his brother grip his hand even harder. Still, he kept walking, refusing to acknowledge the petty insults being thrown at him if only to get Tyrion back home without an altercation, the black iron gates of their massive Spanish colonial mansion just a few feet away.

Then he heard it.

“Didn’t know you had a pet monkey, Lannister. He do any tricks?”

He stiffened, hot, dangerous anger instantly seeping into his veins. The jackass stopped directly in front of him, his friends snickering off to the side.

“Hey, I’m talking to you,” he barked, shoving Jaime hard in the chest, the impact forcing him back a step. Despite his nearly 6 foot frame, he was no match against the sheer brute strength of the senior football player blocking his path.

Jaime watched as his tormenter absently fiddled with the $15,000 Rolex straining around his beefy wrist. They all came from money here, film, real estate, banking, you name it, which was why, for once in his life, his family name did absolutely nothing for him.

The boy looked down his nose at Tyrion, a malicious smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth. “You know, it’s no wonder your mom died. Bet she was glad she did. Hell, I would’ve begged someone to kill me if I gave birth to a fucking ape.”

To this day, Jaime doesn’t quite know how exactly it all happened. One moment they were standing eye-to-eye, the threat of hostility hanging in the air, the next Jaime had him pinned to the ground, his fist connecting with the soft flesh and fragile bones of the boy’s face. They struggled, the other two goading them on as punches were thrown with reckless abandon. Pain exploded in his hand, shooting up his arm with every blow, but he didn’t care and if anything it simply served to fuel his anger.

Then he felt someone grab his collar, pulling him back and away from the fight with single strong jerk, and for a second, he thought one of the others had joined the scuffle. But when he looked up they were gone, racing down the street while their friend struggled clumsily to his feet in a half-conscious daze, blood dripping from his face onto the pavement.

He wrenched himself away from the iron grip around his collar as the boy threw him one last loathing glare that promised this was far from over before scampering after his friends. He stood there, his breath coming in short, winded gasps, bodily shaking with silent rage, and it was then that he noticed the hot, wet tears streaking down his face unchecked. When he finally lost sight of the asshole, he turned to whoever had decided to stick their nose in his fucking business and found himself staring at his father’s hard, unsmiling face.

“Tyrion, get inside,” came Tywin Lannister’s commanding voice after several tense moments of silence, his piercing green eyes never leaving his eldest son.

Jaime looked at his brother who was staring up at him with a shadow of fear in his mismatched eyes then watched as he hurried through the gate and up the slate walkway leading to their house, a twinge of shame twisting his heart at the scene Tyrion had just witnessed. Swiping angrily at his tears, he turned back to his father, defiance straightening his spine and setting his jaw.

Impossibly, Tywin’s iron features seemed to harden even further and for a second, Jaime thought his father would have a burst of violence, the disappointment and contempt evident in his eyes.

But his father was not one to strike his own children, his disdain often insult enough though it wasn’t Jaime who bore the brunt of that burden, but Tyrion. Instead he simply looked at his son, a cold, formidable stare that only a man who had spent his life doing whatever it took to maintain the lucrative family banking empire could have perfected, before finally speaking.

“A lion does not concern himself with the opinions of sheep. You are a Lannister. And for as long as I call you my son, you will conduct yourself in a manner that befits this family.” He paused, eyes flicking down to the blood that stained the pavement and covered Jaime’s knuckles. “Is that understood?”

Jaime wanted to scream. He was so fucking sick of it, of living with the weight of his father’s expectations sitting squarely on his shoulders. It was no secret that Tywin saw his eldest son as his only means of keeping the company in the family despite the fact that he had two other children who could hold the stakes one day. Cersei was too volatile, too irrational, even Jaime recognized that, but Tyrion was intelligent, resourceful, and incredibly witty for his age if only their father would see it. If Jaime was the petty sort, he’d hate Tyrion for the unwanted burden he’d unknowingly placed on Jaime simply for being who and what he was and for taking away the kindest woman he had ever known, but he couldn’t bring himself to resent his beloved little brother.

So he swallowed his frustration, his anger, his enmity, met his father’s steely glare, and said with an abundance of self-control he never knew he had, “Yes, sir.”

Flashing green eyes studied him for a beat longer before his father turned on his heel and strode up the driveway, his crisp black suit barely creasing with his movements.

And left Jaime standing there, alone on the curb, tears drying in blotchy streaks on his face.

It’s over 20 years later and his father isn’t here now nor is he some angsty teen with daddy issues whose brother was getting picked on.

But he is alone, a fact that he would have preferred any other time but now finds no comfort in, and tears he hasn’t shed since he was a boy prickle his eyes.

He stares blankly at the steering wheel, blinking furiously in an attempt to keep those tears at bay though he knows he’s fighting a losing battle. His hands rake through his hair, and he grabs a fistful hard enough to hurt but his whole body has gone numb and he can’t even begin to bring himself to care.

Rain buffets the car, its harsh staccato rapping a chaotic beat against the metal, growing into a deafening crescendo that has his ears ringing and his brain rattling in his skull. He needs to get out of here, needs to pull himself together, stop his teary-eyed bullshit, and _deal with this_ but the bile is rising in his throat and he’s barely breathing and he can’t even see out the fucking window.

Swallowing the overwhelming urge to vomit, he squeezes his eyes shut, the temporary darkness granting him a moment of reprieve, and as a tear escapes down his cheek, mixing with the rain still clinging to his skin, something in him finally kicks him into action. Trembling fingers moving on autopilot fumble with his phone, and he doesn’t even realize who he’s calling until the ringing stops and her slightly exasperated voice filters through the speakers.

“God, Jaime, I’m already in my pajamas. This better be good.”

For a moment, he doesn’t say anything, just sits there listening to the sound of her breath in his ear, and when he speaks, he winces at how painfully raw he sounds. “Brienne?”

A beat. “Jaime? What is it?”

“I didn’t know who else to call. They only just told me.”

“What happened?” There’s a soft rustling on her end like she’s straightening herself in bed and whatever mild annoyance that had been in her voice before has quickly disappeared, an alarmed confusion now taking its place though she’s careful to keep her tone level.

He sucks in a shuddering breath, steeling himself for what he’s about to say. “It’s Tyrion. He’s been in an accident. Hit and run.”

“Is he alright?” she asks quickly.

“They said he’s critical but alive. They were getting him to surgery when they called. But…” He falters, the words getting stuck in his throat before clawing their way to his mouth. “His heart stopped. Twice.” He recalls the phone call he’d just had several minutes previously with Doctor Qyburn as he stood in the rain, the way the air had been sucked out of his lungs and his stomach seemed to turn in on itself in sickening knots. _“Massive traumatic injuries…cardiac arrest…next few_ _hours will be critical…”_ He nearly loses his battle with the nausea remembering those words, the thought of his little brother, who he had protected and loved when no one else would, fighting for his life enough to bring him to his knees.

She swears. She hardly ever swears. “Are you at the hospital?”

“No, I’m— Um, I was wondering— I—” _Spit it out, Lannister_. “Where are you right now?”

There’s a pause as she hesitates. “At Hyle’s.”

He closes his eyes, the name sucker-punching him in the gut as if he doesn’t already have enough shit to deal with. “You know what, never mind. I’ll just—”

“No, Jaime, it’s fine.” The shuffling picks up again and he can just barely hear a man’s questioning voice in the background. “Where are you? I’ll come get you. We’ll go to the hospital together.”

“Forget it. Really. Enjoy your night with Wonder Boy.”

“Oh, for god’s sake, will you stop being a child and tell me where you are?” Her tone brooks no argument in that same way she talks to suspects she’s about to break.

He’s silent for several seconds, watching the rain run in rivulets down the windshield, the darkness outside only broken by the single street light flickering at the edge of the nearly deserted parking lot. He wishes it wasn’t like this, calling her for help like some sniveling child, but he doesn’t have a choice, not when he doesn’t trust himself to drive, hands still shaking and brain function limiting itself to an unbearably slow crawl in a frantic attempt at self-preservation. So he gives in. “I’m at the precinct,” he admits at last, voice quiet with defeat.

“I’ll be there in 15.” And the line clicks dead.

She gets there in 9, sans pajamas and clad in a thick winter coat, rapping on his window and yanking him out of his despondency with a grim sort of urgency. A moment later, they’re in her car and speeding away, the ride to the hospital spent in silence only punctuated by her initial berating of how he’s not at all dressed for the weather— just a well-worn leather jacket and hoodie— and _Jesus, Jaime, you’re soaking wet what were you thinking_ as she blasted her heater in his face. But he’s still numb with shock, his brain seemingly shutting off from processing anything other than whatever news awaits him at the hospital, so he says nothing, just stares unseeingly out the window at the city rushing past.

The car screeches into the visitor parking lot of San Francisco General and she waits just long enough for the brakes to catch before ushering him out the door and sprinting through the rain to the ER entrance. With Brienne’s reassuring presence at his side, he gives his name to the receptionist who casts a well-practiced look of sympathy his way and tells him the doctor will be out shortly to speak to him. Had he been anything like his usual self, he would have bullied his way into getting more information, flashing badges and citing ordinances, but he just nods mutely and steps into the waiting room like maybe the longer he goes without talking about it the more likely this will all just turn out to be a shitty dream.

He’s pacing a hole into the ground, the weight of Brienne’s crystal blue gaze silently following him from her seat, when a wiry, grey-haired man in navy blue scrubs approaches, stopping him dead in his tracks. Doctor Qyburn, he introduces himself, as he steers Jaime into the seat next to Brienne with a gentle hand. The man looks at him long and hard for a moment, his slate-colored eyes not unkind but filled with the burden of many similar talks, before assuring him with a wariness that spoke volumes of the situation that Tyrion was doing as well as could be expected given the extent of his injuries. Stone-faced but with the relief of that one victory, Jaime listens as Qyburn goes on to explain the circumstances, how Tyrion had been crossing the street when a car lost control in the rain and met him nearly full-on, how his injuries were expected and even survivable but immensely complicated because of his size, how it wasn’t the surgery but the hours and days following that would determine the kind of life he could lead, and Jaime takes it all in, grateful for the no-bullshit breakdown that doesn’t treat him like he’s an idiot. Qyburn ends by giving Jaime the option of either staying to wait for the surgery to end, with the warning that it could take hours, or going home to be called if he was needed but Jaime doesn’t even have a chance to answer when Brienne speaks up next to him and firmly announces they’ll be staying. The soft-spoken doctor just nods his understanding, laying a fatherly hand on Jaime’s shoulder and promising to return with updates when he can, then disappears back behind the double doors from which he came, taking with him Jaime’s peace of mind and only tangible link to his brother.

He resumes his pacing the moment the doors swing shut, shuffling up and down the narrow aisle between seats with a distracted jittery energy, the few others in the room either ignoring him or sympathetic to his current state of mind. Again, Brienne says nothing and simply watches his movements with a careful, measured look. He’s grateful for it, for her silence, for not suggesting he should sit down or offering him meaningless platitudes and empty promises they both know to be beyond what either of them could speak for. They’ve both been cops for a while now and know better than most the shit people ended up getting dealt with in life. He supposes that’s why they’re best friends, or more importantly partners, their unspoken bond and understanding of each other’s needs underlying so much of what they did on the streets and off, and right now, what he needs is her, here, while he figures out how to get his head on straight again.

He paces until he can’t anymore, until his feet ache and his legs actually threaten to buckle under him. He’s completely lost all sense of time so whether he’s been on his feet for 30 minutes or three hours, he doesn’t know but he collapses in the hard vinyl chair next to his partner all the same, elbows on his knees and head in his hands. The shock is slipping away, replaced instead by a resigned weariness that’s seeping into his bones, and he shivers as the dampness of his clothes finally catches up to him. In retrospect, standing out in the rain next to his car, frozen with fear as he processed what Qyburn was telling him over the phone, wasn’t his smartest move but there isn’t anything he can do about that now.

Sitting there, without the sound of his footsteps on the tile floor and the distraction that came with being occupied, he’s finally aware of just how quiet it actually is, the single TV anchored to the far wall filling the room with some late night talk show host’s tinny monologue and not much else. It’s maddening, the sheer depth of the silence, how every wretched thought in his head of all the things that could go wrong seems to amplify until he’s silently begging for something else, anything else to pull him from his private hell.

“What were you doing earlier?” Of all things, he doesn’t know what possesses him ask _that_ but he does, and the moment the words leave his mouth, he’s wishing the ground would just swallow him whole.

“Just watching a movie,” she says simply. “Can you believe Hyle’s never seen Harry Potter?”

He stares at some point on the floor, studiously avoiding her gaze in an attempt to hide his undoubtedly glassy, red-rimmed eyes. He knows she’s just trying to distract him, hell, it’s what he wanted her to do, but he can’t help but hear the fondness that slips into her voice nor can he ignore the painful twinge in his chest at her tone. He doesn’t give a shit about Hunt with his easy smiles and offhand shrugs but if she’s missing him so much then he isn’t going to make her stay. He doesn’t want her pity, her guilt at leaving him to deal with this himself and if that had any part in her decision to drag herself away from Hunt for the night then he’d rather she not be here at all.

“You can leave if you want. You don’t have to—”

“I’m not going anywhere so you can just shut up.”

And he does for a moment, knowing her well enough to recognize when she wants her way and he’d sooner find himself missing parts of his anatomy he’d very much like to keep if he doesn’t let her.

But then she nudges his shoulder with hers, their only point of contact since she showed up at his window earlier and coaxed him out of his car.

“Partner,” she adds softly, letting her arm linger next to his, her warmth palpable through his damp jacket and chasing away the cold.

He finally glances over her way and finds her steady sapphire blues locked on his, a determined sort of sincerity shinning in them that has him drowning in their intensity. Sometimes he still doesn’t understand how she can see right through him like she’s doing now, her eyes telling him in no uncertain terms that whatever bullshit reasons he had for thinking she’d want to leave were exactly that and that he was an idiot for even considering them though she wouldn’t say it in so many words. Inexplicably, his heart tightens, a feeling swelling in his chest and bubbling up his throat bringing with it the desire to say _something_ but what exactly he can’t quite figure out because _thank you_ just seems so pathetically banal and _okay_ sounds like he took a step down on the evolutionary ladder.

So he just nods, unable to find other words to articulate what he wants to say, whatever it is, and settles back into his seat to continue his vigil, reassured that even if he doesn’t know how any of this will end, if everything in his life all goes to hell tonight and all he can do is watch it burn, he at least has his partner to get him through it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tyrion's fate will be addressed later but I wouldn't sweat it too much. This is, after all, about Jaime and Brienne. ;)
> 
>  
> 
> [Chapter 3 photoset](http://midnightraptor.tumblr.com/post/103352931790/i-couldnt-give-you-today-but-i-can-promise-you)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back again! Apologies for the delay. I’m still adjusting to life as a working member of society and 12 hour shifts really cut back your writing time, it would seem. If you’ve stuck with this, thank you so much for your patience. Rest assured, I haven’t forgotten about it. And if it’s any consolation, this is my longest chapter. 
> 
> On a related note, HOW ABOUT THAT TRAILER THOUGH? Those two seconds gave me the motivation to finish this as I found Brienne’s line to be very relevant to what happens in this chapter. But enough of my teasing and I’ll let you get reading!

_“Nothing’s more hateful than failing to protect the one you love.” –Brienne of Tarth_

* * *

The fourth time he crashes he’s absolutely livid.

He throws open the stairwell door, hands coming up hard against the push bar and letting the metal clang harshly into the wall behind it, the noise reverberating up the narrow shaft as sharp as a gunshot. He doesn’t usually take the stairs here—hell, it’s six fucking floors— but he doesn’t want, _can’t stand_ to wait in a goddamn elevator for any length of time, not when his blood is roaring in his ears and a heated, volatile energy is thrumming in his veins.

He climbs the steps two at a time, doesn’t give the slightest damn if he’s waking up the entire complex with his heavy footsteps banging on the steel below him because _just fucking try him_ and see if he cares. A man is coming down the opposite way, his handsome golden lab trotting happily at his side, and he flashes Jaime a good-natured grin upon seeing him. He ignores it, along with the cheerful, “What’s up, Jaime?” and excited pawing at his legs, shoving past Loras Tyrell with an unapologetic roughness who’s then left staring at his back in a perplexed silence as Jaime continues his ascent.

Six flights of stairs later and barely out of breath, he exits the stairwell and stalks down the corridor, the thick carpet now muffling his footsteps to a bare whisper. The door is on his left, a solid panel of painted charcoal wood as familiar to him as anything else about _her_ though he hasn’t been here in quite some time, and he feels a pang of _something_ twist his heart upon seeing it, threatening to drown his anger, but then he remembers and no, _hell no_ , this is happening and his temper flares once again.

So he raises a fist and bangs on the door, a steady, jarring beat that has the handle rattling in the wood and echoes down the deserted hallway, louder, harder, faster until he’s sure he’s woken up the whole building.

But there’s nothing, no reply, no heads poked out of doorways hissing at him to shut up not even from the one he’s pounding on which only stokes the flames of his anger even further.

Then, just as he’s digging into his pocket for his phone with his free hand, the lock clicks and the door swings open, revealing her baffled, freckled face from within.

“Jaime, what are—”

But she doesn’t get to ask questions, not now, not when he’s reached the end of his fuse and she’s the one who needs to explain herself.

“What the _fuck_ were you thinking?” he snarls without preamble, cutting her off and pushing his way into Brienne’s apartment.

It’s warm inside, a stark contrast to the wet, blustery February night he’s just escaped, and the heady smell of fresh bread and slow-cooking meat hangs in the air, drifting from the kitchen the next room over and painfully reminding him of the fact that he hasn’t eaten in almost 24 hours.

“ _Excuse me?_ ” She’s still standing by the door, seemingly frozen with bewilderment, and he can’t even believe she has the nerve to sound affronted.

“Oh, don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about,” he says harshly as he turns to face her and she closes the door to keep his escalating voice from carrying out the hall. “You know, for all my bullshit I honestly thought you were the smarter cop out of the two of us. So explain to me why I just spent the last three and a half hours trying to figure out what could have possibly have possessed you to do something so _un-fucking-believably stupid_.”

The realization finally dawns on her and she goes from looking offended to incredulous, taking a step towards where he still stands in her darkened foyer. “Are you kidding me right now? That’s what this is about?”

“What the hell else would this be about?” He throws his hands into the air, doesn’t back down even as she advances. “Payne was injured. You left a two-year rookie to fend for himself. You had no back-up. No vest. You didn’t even call it in.”

She raises a finger and juts it in his direction, her voice taking on a hard, sharp edge. “Pod was fine. I tried to stay with him but he told me to go and that he’d call it in himself.”

“And you know what his call over to dispatch was? Almost five whole minutes after passersby reported shots fired? A fucking 4-44. At the same address I knew you were at.”

He hates remembering, hates saying those three repeated numbers that brought his world to a grinding halt but he does anyway and it tears him apart all the same, sends him back to earlier that night when he sat in his cruiser, lights blazing, siren blaring, weaving in and out of rush hour traffic with the single-minded focus that only a life at stake can bring.

The first call was like lightning, sudden and fleeting and electrifying the air with a frisson of desperate energy.

“We have reports of shots fired at 5821 South Marina Blvd. Repeat, shots fired, 5-8-2-1 South Marina Blvd. Nearest available unit, please respond.”

It took a second longer for the words to register in his head, so intent was he on getting back into the City before it was too late, before he had yet another tiny body weighing on his already soiled conscience, but when they did his stomach gave an ugly lurch and the slow trickle of apprehension slid down his spine.

But he’d been a cop for long enough, knew that “shots fired” didn’t always mean there was live fire, so overzealous were well-meaning citizens at times mistaking car backfires and other loud noises, so he shoved it to the back of his mind, forcing himself to focus not on the unease building inside him but on the eight year old girl whose time was running out and whose face he’d add to the macabre collection that haunted his dreams if he lost his focus and failed her now.

The second call was like thunder, booming and ominous and rattling every fiber of his being to the core.

He was speeding along the shoulder when it came, the tail lights of the bumper-to-bumper traffic rushing past him as he pressed his weight into the pedal, the disembodied voice of the dispatcher crackling urgently over the radio.

“Be advised, 5821 South Marina Blvd. is now a 4-44. Repeat, 4-44 in progress, 5-8-2-1 South Marina Blvd. One officer confirmed down. EMS en route.”

It was like a sledgehammer straight to the gut, the breath abandoning him in a violent rush while his blood turned to ice in his veins and his heart seemingly froze mid-beat.

4-44. _Officer-involved shooting_.

Fear swept over him, this cold, dark thing that numbed his skin and flooded his bones before dropping like lead in the pit of his stomach. Later, when he pulled himself together and got his head around this whole fucking mess, he’d swear that the sound had been sucked out of the air and that time itself had slowed to an absolute standstill, his whole world crumbling down to those three simple numbers.

“Sir!”

He came back to himself just in time to slam on the breaks as an 18-wheeler suddenly swerved in front of him, all four tons of solid police cruiser coming to a screeching, haphazard stop just feet away from certain destruction.

“That’s the address Detective Tarth’s checking out,” the voice next to him said gravely after several moments of shell-shocked silence, their bodies still swaying with the momentum of the car. “Sir?”

It was her name that finally spurred him into action, had him visibly shaking himself out of the daze he had fallen into, and he spun the steering wheel and floored the gas without sparing a glance at the young, grim-faced uniformed officer in the passenger seat.

“Do me a favor, Snow,” he said, voice tight with apprehension as he sped with a renewed frantic desperation towards the gleaming lights of the Bay Bridge and whatever nightmarish hell awaited him at the scene. “Don’t say another word until we get there.”

Looking back, he can’t say how he even made it on scene in the state he was in, paralyzing fear holding him in its iron grip and tunneling his vision until the streets blurred dangerously in front of him and little else, save for Brienne, registered in his mind. He recalls the last time he saw her before his world spun out of control, her wide, freckled face set grimly in a look that spoke volumes of the situation as they ducked into separate squad cars back at the precinct and split off in a desperate race against time, young Officer Payne at her side, Jon at his, the two Unis handpicked by them from patrol for this task. They’re rarely, if ever, separated on the streets, each hating the vulnerability of being without the other, without the only one they trusted implicitly to have their backs, but they’d had no choice, not if they wanted any hope of finding the girl alive at one of the three locations they’d narrowed her down to. So they’d split up, him heading across the Bay to an old shipyard in Alameda, Brienne staying in the City to search last two addresses they’d had. His search had turned up nothing but hers had been an entirely different story.

That had been hours ago and so much had happened since then, an eternity seemingly passing at a pace too glacial for him to bear with any sort of grip on his sanity. He’d been pushed to the brink a hundred times over tonight, and he’s fairly certain that if he’d found himself at Brienne’s door any sooner than he just had, a very different man would’ve greeted her, one whose anger would not have been enough to mask his fear, as raw and unbridled as it was after everything that had happened.

And now here he is, nerves frayed to the barest of threads until he can feel himself slowly unraveling before her while trying desperately to hold on to whatever composure he has left. But he’s made it this far, all slow-simmering temper and gut-wrenching fear, and he’d be damned if he fell apart before getting this out.

She blinks several times in rapid succession, like she’s seeing him clearly for the first time, and a fleeting look of contrition finally passes over her face. “Look, I called you. I left you messages saying I was fine before my phone died afterwards.”

“That’s not the fucking point, Brienne, and you know it.”

“Then what _is_ the point?”

She steps forward once more, out of the shadows of the darkened foyer and into the light streaming through the kitchen doorway, and he can’t help the sickening drop of his stomach when he finally sees her face. Her bottom lip is busted open, swollen and red and angry, her previously broken nose sits even more off-center than before, bruises bloom across her cheek, one sitting squarely on the left, the other rising higher towards her eye on the right, and a jagged gash mars her temple, held together by a tight row of stitches disappearing into her hairline. The sight robs him off his voice, squeezes the breath right out of his chest but what he hates the most is the look of exhausted defiance and barely concealed pain shining in her eyes and the way she’s holding herself just a little too gingerly for his liking.

“Minor injuries” was what Captain Stark had told him when he’d finally arrived on scene, nearly out of his mind with terror and frantically demanding to know the whereabouts of his partner.

It was she who’d found him just as a closed body bag was being wheeled out of the abandoned warehouse by CSU, his knees nearly giving out from under him at the sight.

“She’s okay. Jaime, listen to me, she’s alive. She’s alright,” she’d said with a firm grip on his shoulders, anchoring him to the present. “There was a struggle. She sustained some minor injuries but she killed him. I sent her off to the hospital to get checked out but she is fine, do you hear me? I promise you.”

He’d later find out that it was Pod who’d been shot, taking a 9mm to the leg while searching the warehouse but remaining otherwise unscathed before Brienne took off after the shooter without calling it in or going back for the bulletproof vest they kept in the trunk of the cruiser. She bore the consequences of those choices now, etched plainly on her face and in every painful breath she took from the beating she’d taken, although he’s acutely aware of just how much worse it could’ve been.

 _The point is you could’ve died. The point is I could’ve lost you. The point is I don’t know what I would’ve done without you._ He doesn’t know where those words come from but they blossom in his chest and creep up his throat, desperate and insistent, until they’re _right there_ but in the end he can’t do it, can’t bring himself to say them. So he swallows them back down, hating the bitter, cowardly taste they leave in his mouth.

“The case is closed,” she goes on when he doesn’t respond. “Jayne Poole is alive. Ramsay Snow is dead. By tomorrow, they’ll be asking us for a statement about how it feels to have caught the Bay’s sickest serial killer since the Zodiac.”

In all his preoccupation, he’s almost forgotten about the girl they saved and the sociopathic piece of shit who almost took her life if it hadn’t been for Brienne, and while he is grateful for this outcome, the fact that he failed to protect his partner and the possibility that he could’ve lost her in the process are still all too real for him to let go.

There’s movement behind her shoulder, and although he can’t bring himself to drag his eyes away from her battered face, he senses Hunt leaning against the doorway to the kitchen, dish towel thrown over a shoulder, a steaming pot in one hand, and a ladle paused mid-stir in the other. For a moment, Jaime thinks the man is set to interrupt them but is left wanting when Hunt makes no move to make his presence known and just watches them in a careful, appraising silence.

“Is that it, then? You just decided to take on an armed serial killer on your own? Thought you’d play the hero so your boyfriend could write a nice, long bit about how you saved the day just in time for the morning paper?” There’s a bitter sting in his voice that really has no business being there but there’s no helping it and he spits it out with more venom than she deserves.

“This wasn’t about being a goddamn hero, Lannister,” she bites back, blue eyes flashing dangerously. “It was about bringing the man who brutally murdered two innocent little girls to justice before he did the same to a third.”

“By running in blind with nothing but your side arm? What if he’d gotten to your weapon first? What if you were the one on the other side of that barrel? What then?”

She looks at him like she can’t quite believe what she’s hearing. “What are you saying? That I should’ve let him go so he could kidnap some other eight year old whose body we’d find nailed to a cross a week later?”

“That’s not what I’m—” He hears himself escalating and inhales sharply through his nose to bring himself back down. “This isn’t a damn Rambo movie. You don’t get to go AWOL whenever some sick bastard starts playing mind games with you.”

“I was doing my job. To Serve and Protect. That’s what we swore to do. Look me in the eye and tell me you wouldn’t have done the same if you were me.”

“You could’ve—”

“I could’ve what, Jaime?” She’s the one yelling now, arms thrown wide in frustration. “It’s over. You can yell about what I could’ve and should’ve done all you want but the fact is it happened and it’s over. Yeah, I went in without backup, without calling it in, without following protocol or whatever else you want to throw at me. But if it meant that little girl got to go home to her family and live out the rest of her life, I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. She mattered to someone and that’s enough for me.”

There’s a beat of silence, the tension crackling threateningly in the air.

“Enough for you to forget what happened the last time an officer went in alone on your watch?”

The moment the words leave his mouth, quietly and with a calmness that undermined the fire still coursing through his veins, he knows he overstepped his boundaries. But he can’t stop, not even as the blood drains from her face and her eyes darken with the ghosts of her past.

“I would’ve thought you of all people would know exactly what’s at stake when we go in without backup.”

“Don’t you dare bring him into this,” she breathes, a slight tremor barely evident in her voice.

But he did and there’s no unringing that bell now. “You asked me what I would’ve done if I were you. I would’ve done exactly what you did. I’m not denying that. And it would’ve been just as reckless if I had. But it would be you standing here yelling at me right now because as much as you don’t talk about it, you still blame yourself for what happened to Renly. You still remember what it felt like when you heard those gunshots and knew that it didn’t matter what he told you; you shouldn’t have let him go into that house without you. So don’t give me your high horse bullshit and pretend you don’t understand where this is coming from. Because you’ve been here and you know exactly what there is to lose.”

She told him that story only once before, back when she hated him and they were still trying to figure out where they stood as partners. Sitting in some dark, seedy hole-in-the-wall after the shittiest case either one of them had worked in a long time, a double murderer gone free after the prosecution fell apart, they drowned their anger in mouthfuls of Jameson from shot glasses that had seen better days. There had been silence at first, their five-month partnership still fraught with tension and pushed to the brink by the case, and he was having a hard time remembering exactly why he dragged her sullen ass to the bar from the courthouse in the first place.

But then he told her about Aerys, the words tumbling out of him before he even knew what he was saying, and while it was the same story, the same godforsaken truth that had damned him all those years ago, she listened, her eyes softening with the realization of what he was telling her. She broke her silence about her late partner a moment later, how what was supposed to be a routine address check for a lead ended up an interrupted home invasion and homicide, seven-year veteran Detective Renly Baratheon shot dead by a recent parolee while she sat in the car on his orders, oblivious to the danger her partner of one year was unwittingly walking into.

“He said we’d be out of there in two minutes,” came the small, broken crack of her voice as she stared into her empty shot glass as if it alone held the answers to the questions that haunted her. “30 seconds later, he was dead before the front door even closed behind him.”

It didn’t take a genius to figure out the depth of her feelings for the man, the anguish on her face going beyond that of an officer for her partner, and it killed her more than she was willing to admit to carry the blame she’d placed squarely on herself despite the fact that Internal Affairs had cleared her of any wrongdoing. He supposed that was what sealed their partnership after their rocky start just three months after she’d lost Renly, the burden of having to live with the blood of a comrade on their hands uniting them in some sick, twisted way. He scarcely brought up her late partner and she talked about him even rarer still, but he could see the way her eyes clouded with guilt whenever his name was said in her presence and just how much the memory of him still haunted her even after all this time.

But it isn’t the guilt that dims the usual bright blues of her eyes now nor is it the heartbreak he’s grown accustomed to over the years. Instead what he sees is betrayal, hollow and absolute in its depth. He’s hurt her, he knew that the moment he opened his mouth after she’d defended her choices because there’s an unspoken line among law enforcement that simply isn’t crossed lightly and he just went and blew it up in her face. If he was a better man, he might’ve thought to apologize at least for his harshness if nothing else but he’s long past that now and he’d be damned if he doesn’t get her to understand that he isn’t the only one who went out of bounds tonight.

From his spot in the doorway, Hunt stirs just then and Jaime darts his eyes past Brienne to lay the man with a venomous glare, expecting to get one in return for overstaying his welcome and upsetting his partner and ready to tear Hunt a new one if he stuck his nose where it didn’t belong. So he’s thrown off guard when the animosity is glaringly absent and the man just stares back at him with something he’d dare to call solidarity, his features set in a grim look of dawning comprehension and disbelief, and it suddenly occurs to Jaime that Brienne might not have given Hunt the whole store of exactly how their day went down, downplaying the severity of what happened. _Stupid, stubborn woman_.

He hasn’t seen eye-to-eye with Hunt, not since their disastrous initial meeting last year, but he allows the man a brief meaningful look, knowing that at least for this one instance they’re on the same page despite the fact that he’s clearly just interrupted whatever dinner plans they were in the middle of just now.

Turning back to Brienne, he watches as the emotions flicker across her face, the self-assured defiance giving way to a pained and burdened sadness that twists his heart. He tries to summon the raging, fear-fueled anger that had been surging through him so strongly just moments before but finds that the fight has simply gone out of him, leaving him feeling weary and deflated. How ever he imagined the day ending, it certainly wasn’t like this, toe-to-toe with his partner in a battle of wills that left them still at odds with each other and waiting to see who’d back down first. As much as he had let his temper get the best of him, he never wanted to fight. All he wanted _, all he wanted_ ever since that moment in his cruiser when everything had gone to hell was to know that she was alright, that she was alive and safe, and that the next time he saw her wouldn’t be as she was being lowered six feet into the ground. He’d thought that seeing her would give him that peace of mind, assure him of the fact that regardless of whatever had happened, he still had her, but it’s not enough and he realizes then that it never was, the memory of that fear still too tangible for him to forget.

Instead, what he so desperately wants now is to touch her, to pull her into his arms and hold her, feeling the living, breathing energy coming off her body, heart beating steadily against his chest, a solid affirmation of her well-being under his fingers. He’s never felt such an overwhelming and inexplicable urge, and it takes every molecule of self-control he has not to move from the spot he’s rooted himself to and surge into her space.

Because he has no right to touch her, not really, not when he’s just torn her down and any claim he might’ve dreamed to have on her had long since been taken by another and he feels the cold, hard truth of it ripping him asunder, his heart crumbling with the effort of keeping him in his place.

So he stays put, the fingers of his right hand twitching, itching to reach between the cavernous space that divides them and sweep across her battered, broken face before falling back to his side without going any further than a fleeting, hidden desire. His fist clenches, hard enough that his knuckles crack from the strain and his nails dig painfully into his palm, as he fights to maintain what little composure he has left. He takes a breath once, then twice, feels the weight of everything he can’t freely say or do falling heavily on him until he can’t stand this stalemate any longer and tears his gaze from hers, the last of his frustration with her, with himself, with this whole clusterfuck of a day wearing him down as he turns away and shows himself out, the hollow thumping of his boots against the hardwood floor the only sound cutting through the oppressive silence filling the air.

But he pauses at the door, fingers poised over the handle, before turning to glance over his shoulder and back at her once more.

“We’re partners, Brienne,” he says quietly. “And Jayne wasn’t the only one who mattered to someone today. Think about that the next time you decide your life is worth less than anyone else’s.”

She says nothing, just stands there staring unseeingly into the space he’d just vacated in front of her, the muscles jumping in her jaw. He expected as much, knew her too well to expect anything else, but can’t help but hate the way her silence cuts into him, deep and resounding. An exhausted sigh escapes his lips, one that speaks of all the things he knows will get left unsaid tonight no matter how long they stand there. So he takes that as he cue and jerks the door open, letting it slam raucously against the frame as he steps out and leaves her and everything they won’t admit to each other behind him without a second glance back.

It isn’t until he finds himself alone in the stairwell again, hand throbbing from where he’d slammed his palm into the stuccoed wall in frustration, that he allows himself the thought that maybe there’s something else, something he’s pushed back and fought for so long that he isn’t quite ready to admit to himself, let alone her, just yet.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have rather mixed feelings about how I wrote this. This was my favorite chapter conceptually when I was coming up with the different chapters initially and I had a very specific vision for it. I’m not entirely sure I delivered it 100% like how I wanted to but I did the very best I could and I hope that came across at least. I also hope that Hunt’s silent agreement with Jaime is starting to sway those who still hate him on principle. He really cares about her, guys! I can’t make him a douche, I just can’t lol!  
>    
> And for a little trivia, for those of you who aren't familiar with him, the [Zodiac Killer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zodiac_Killer) was a serial killer who was active in the 60s in the San Francisco Bay Area. He was never caught.
> 
> [Chapter 4 photoset](http://midnightraptor.tumblr.com/post/109630122905/i-couldnt-give-you-today-but-i-can-promise-you)


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